Dont let AB see this... He hates Jensens.
Originally Posted by Nipper
He hates Jensens.
And How !
I'm with OG on this one. For $30 grand I can put together a wall of 19's or a killer A4 system a couple of A5's and maybe even a pair of A7's to boot.All at the same time...
One thing I do like about those Jensens is the baskets.Nice solid cast baskets.
This is the Rare of the Rarests! The Best of the Bestest! Ultimately, THE KING OF KINGS!!!! This is the Super High End Jensen 2 in 1 Speaker System! Never have you seen anything like this before.
Never have you seen anything like it before...Except in every Altec speaker design I've ever seen.
If they were so great why are there none in the world?
Jensen was a higher end manufacturer in the beginning. I have seen some decent theater stuff.
As Altec grew to dominate the high end home market, Jensen positioned itself more in the low end. But frankly, a lot of the cheaper stuff does not sound that bad.
Same thing happened with many other manufacturers. The death knell was when the Japanese stuff moved in. It was cheap and good.
Altec dominated the home and theater markets and thought it would last forever. JBL was forced to go after Pro audio, which positioned them well when the Pro market exploded in the 70's. There were years in the 70's where JBL sold as much as they did in 5 during the 50's.
Altec was struggling to recover from the Ling debacle. About that time is when I was involved. It became apparent the relationship wouldn't work, I was young and brash, and didn't understand the inertia involved in a big company. Some bad decisions on management part didn't help. Altec would be bankrupt again in ten years. They were never able to recover from being left with no cash by Ling. He spun them off with heavy debt.
BTW one of the world's most highly regarded speakers, Altec 755a, has a stamped frame. All a cast frame does is give a speaker more rigidity. The bigger the frame, the better idea a cast frame is.
Some WWII era Altecs have stamped frames from Utah. Aluminum was precious, witness also the foam 808 multicells. You could fly an aluminum plane but not a steel one.
Last edited by Old Guy; January 5th, 2012 at 09:11 AM.
Your neighbors called. They like your music.
Including the original model 601 field coil duplex predecessor to the 604. I've also had my hands on stamped frame 414 woofers, ~same frame as the 600B.Some WWII era Altecs have stamped frames from Utah.
Astute observers will also note that the Heppner 2 x 6 horn tweeter as used in the later "C" version Bolero and Madera is a functional copy of the Jensen RP-103. Foster/Fostex of Japan would later go on to also produce a fine sounding functional copy of the RP-103.
OG,
Did you actually work for Altec?
He is the idiot I blame for our Beloved company's demise. I would have liked to spun him off (A Cliff)
FWIW It's not so much the stamped versus cast frame I have the issue with it is the thickness in metal that bothered me the most.BTW one of the world's most highly regarded speakers, Altec 755a, has a stamped frame. All a cast frame does is give a speaker more rigidity. The bigger the frame, the better idea a cast frame is.
The Altec 755 is a very robust frame.One of the best Full ranges made.And is welded in several spots.The Jensen would disappear into a pool of molten metal with a arc welder it is very thin sheet metal.The 755 is 1/8" thick steel or close to it.
Wow! Those look nice!
Audio_by_Goodwill
Michigan, USA
Ain't worth the price of 20 pairs of Model 19's though.
Your neighbors called. They like your music.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks